Switchboard is a pioneer in online yellow pages industry. After launching in February 1996, Switchboard introduced Internet's first interactive yellow pages display ads, serving more than 20,000 ads covering 2,000 categories. These ads were first to capture look and feel of traditional yellow pages print ads in an online environment.

Switchboard provides a fast and easy way for people and businesses to find each other on Web. Each day, millions of consumers find businesses they need through Switchboard--from a local florist, to a nearby car dealership, to restaurants closest to a planned travel or vacation destination. At same time, Switchboard gives merchants an easy way to connect with consumers who are "ready to buy"--helping them establish and grow their presence on Web.

So, if you've had it with pitiful local search results provided by Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other amateur wannabe's, I highly recommend you introduce yourself to "king!"

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

Mamma has a great ranking algorithm--applied to all pages returned. This gives back results that are both commercial in content and resourceful in terms of educating user. Mamma also applies attribution to search results--by default--sorting by relevance--not by source. On some other metasearch search engines, you have to go to second page and do an extra click to get your results sorted by relevance. This is not optimal, since not one index is superior to other, and sorting by Google first, may not always give users best result first.

In addition, Mamma.com supports white and yellow page look- ups, and has a great picture search functionality.

Here's an interesting note: According to Mamma.com, Mark Cuban, star of reality television show, "The Benefactor," and owner of Dallas Mavericks) invested in Mamma.com in March, because he liked picture search functionality so much.

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net

Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net